Film & Discussion: Who Bombed Judi Bari?

Stricken by cancer and close to death, Judi Bari--a leader of the movement to save California’s old growth redwoods--gives her testimony about the attempt on her life and her lawsuit against the FBI for trying to frame her and Darryl Cherney.

In the mid 1980’s the pace of old growth redwood forest clear-cutting increased dramatically in California and lead to a resistance movement spearheaded by Earth First! Only 5% of the redwoods remained at that time – and the fear was that soon they would all be gone. Local activists called for national help, planning a summer of protests in the style used in Mississippi during the civil rights struggles, called Redwood Summer.

But on May 24 in 1990, a bomb blew up in the car of two of the most prominent Earth First! redwood activists: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney – while they were driving through Oakland, CA on an organizing tour for Redwood Summer. The FBI and Oakland Police immediately accused the pair of carrying their own bomb and of being environmental terrorists. The story played out for weeks in the press – the victims were the suspects.